Drip Irrigation Management by TDR Monitoring of Soil Water and Solute Distribution

Abstract

Drip irrigation has the potential of high water use efficiency, but actual water measurement is difficult because of the limited wetted volume. Two long-term experiments in orchards in Israel and in California and several field crop studies supported by this project have demonstrated the feasibility of precise monitoring of soil water distribution for drip irrigation in spite of the limited soil wetting. Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) enables in situ measurement of soil water content of well defined small volumes. Several approaches were tried in monitoring the soil water balance in the field during drip irrigation. These also facilitated the estimation of water uptake: 1. The use of multilevel moisture probe TDR system. This approach proved to be of limited value because of the extremely small diameter of measurement. 2. The placement of 20 cm long TDR probes at predetermined distances from the drippers in citrus orchards. 3. Heavy instrumentation with neutron scattering access tubes and tensiometers of a single drip irrigated almond tree. 4. High resolution spatial and temporal measurements (0.1m x 0.1m grid) of water content by TDR in corn irrigated by surface and subsurface drip. The latter approach was accompanied by parametric modelling of water uptake intensity patterns by corn roots and superimposed with analytical solutions for water flow from point and line sources. All this lead to general and physically based suggestions for the placement of soil water sensors for scheduling drip irrigation.